A quick visit to the build your Malibu Section at
http://www.gm.ca/gm/english/vehicles/chevrolet/ shows that the LTZ can be spec'd out with the 2.4l 6speed combo, though I couldn't guess if they are actually shipping cars built this way yet.
I've had the pleasure of driving the Parents Malibu with the V6 and I've been a passenger in 4 cylinder Malibu LT that a CSR at work has and I really liked the driving experience in the folks Car for the hour and a half I drove it and I can say that the 4 cylinder certainly seemed to be able to get out of its own way even with the 4 speed transmission. Obviously whether or not the 4 cylinder 6 speed combo is an enjoyable combo to drive will not be known till you drive one for yourself.
I am surprised the artic can claim to have only seen 2 loaded V6 malibu's as I must see at least 5 new malibu's every day on my commute to work, and the locate your malibu part of GM's website shows 25 LS's available to my local dealer ,25 4 cylinder LT's available but only 4 available 6 cylinder LTZ's and ,surprisingly to me, only 3 hybrid malilbu's so I would be surprised if more then 1 of the 5 was a v6 based on what GM has had available ever since the parents started looking at Malibus back in March.
If GM has dropped the ball on the roll out of the Malibu it appears to me to be the number of hybrids they have produced so far. Of course if the GM had the knowledge of the coming fuel prices a year and a half ago when they likely planned their model mix then I suspect their would be a lot less trucks and a lot more cobalts and malibu hybrids on every dealer lot. Hind sight is 20/20 though.
I must say though that the parents Malibu has the folks really impressed with it's fuel economy. Admittedly dad has just turned 80 so he's not likely to be driving hard but he's saying he's getting about 38 MPG (imperial gallons) which I believe if my math is correct works out to around 7.2l/100km. I'm only getting around 6.9 l/100 KM with my Lancer so if he is right on his mileage it's really amazing, even though I probably drive the Lancer a lot harder then dad's been pushing the Malibu. If they hadn't had a problem with the car which GM couldn't correct for more then 3 weeks they would be thrilled. At this point the step mother is still ticked at GM but hopefully if they don't have any GM people set her off she'll get over it in the next year or so.